Here is a simple cheatsheet for the .htaccess file:
Enable Directory Browsing
Options +Indexes
## block a few types of files from showing
IndexIgnore *.wmv *.mp4 *.avi
Disable Directory Browsing
Options All -Indexes
Customize Error Messages
ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /servererror.html
Get SSI working with HTML/SHTML
AddType text/html .html
AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .html
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
# AddHandler server-parsed .htm
Change Default Page (order is followed!)
DirectoryIndex myhome.htm index.htm index.php
Block Users from accessing the site
order deny,allow
deny from 202.54.122.33
deny from 8.70.44.53
deny from .spammers.com
allow from all
Allow only LAN users
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 192.168.0.0/24
Redirect Visitors to New Page/Directory
Redirect oldpage.html http://www.domainname.com/newpage.html
Redirect /olddir http://www.domainname.com/newdir/
Block site from specific referrers
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block-2\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F]
Block Hot Linking/Bandwidth hogging
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ – [F]
Want to show a “Stealing is Bad” message too?
Add this below the Hot Link Blocking code:
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/dontsteal.gif [R,L]
Stop .htaccess (or any other file) from being viewed
order allow,deny
deny from all
Avoid the 500 Error
# Avoid 500 error by passing charset
AddDefaultCharset utf-8
Grant CGI Access in a directory
Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script cgi pl
# To enable all scripts in a directory use the following
# SetHandler cgi-script